


Marks Aren't Everything; Or; How Marinette Learned to Live Freely, A-- Learned to Live Truly, and Kagami Told Her Mother to Fuck Off

by IncendiaryCatalyst



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, F/M, Identity Porn, Identity Reveal, Mistaken Identity, Multi, Polyamory, Trans Female Character, Uncle Jagged Stone (Miraculous Ladybug), Useless Lesbians
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 06:15:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24466300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IncendiaryCatalyst/pseuds/IncendiaryCatalyst
Summary: Kagami was gay, and things would work out much smoother if she could convince her (presumably platonic) soulmate Adrien and her (hopefully romantic) soulmate Marinette to enter into a relationship with her. Her Mother could believe she was with Adrien, Adrien and Marinette could be happy, and if she was very very lucky she could love Marinette too.Marinette felt the weight of the world on her shoulders, and she feared all of her soulmates would be platonic as the icing on the cake. Not that that was bad, of course, but seriously, couldn't the universe cut her a break when she saved Paris literally every day?Adrien wondered why, when he saw Ryuko and Ladybug kiss, his soulmark for Ladybug shifted drastically. He looked up the flower printed in black on his left arm, and he saw it was a violet, a symbol of lesbianism. It left him with more questions than answers, especially since it sat right above her lip print, branded to him forever.The kids have a lot of growing up to do, but in the end they'll be alright.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Kagami Tsurugi, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug/Kagami Tsurugi, Alya Césaire/Nino Lahiffe, Emilie Agreste/Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth/Nathalie Sancoeur, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug/Kagami Tsurugi
Comments: 8
Kudos: 91





	Marks Aren't Everything; Or; How Marinette Learned to Live Freely, A-- Learned to Live Truly, and Kagami Told Her Mother to Fuck Off

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, so before you dive in, you should know this isn't a standard soulmate au.
> 
> Everyone on earth has four soulmates, and their marks create monochromatic tattoo sleeves across your skin. (Usually limbs, but there are exceptions.) A soulmate is just someone cosmically scripted to play a huge role in your life. Most people only have one, if any, romantic soulmate(s), but of course Hollywood makes it look like the end all be all.
> 
> The tattoos develop the more you know the person, and they can be persnickety, to put it gently.

Kagami could almost strangle Andre Glacier.

It's true, involving herself with Adrien  _ and _ Marinette would have complicated things. It also would have been the easiest way out of the situation she was in. Adrien was mother approved, multilingual, a competent fencing opponent, oblivious to no end, and best of all, he wouldn't try anything without being practically pushed into it. (She still finds herself angry when she thinks about Lila forcing herself on him, even if she  _ is _ embarrassed about her akumatization that day.)

Really, it would be easiest to just date Adrien and be done with it, if it wasn't for the small detail that, oh right, she's a lesbian. So really, letting Adrien date her  _ and  _ Marinette would have been perfect. Marinette is actually into him, so he would hopefully funnel all of his affection into her, and he couldn't honestly be too mad at her for pursuing Marinette if he was already dating her too. It would be the most efficient way to handle things, so long as they managed to keep her mother and Gabriel Agreste from findingout about the arrangement. And M. Dupain and Mme. Cheng had already proven themselves surprisingly progressive and lenient with Marinette on their juice dates. (And oh, what Kagami would give for them to have been actual dates; still, Marinette's friendship was by no means a consolation prize. Kagami had never had such a good friend that she felt so deeply for though. It was… concerning, honestly. She had to hope it would not become something her mother would pick up on.)

Still, Marinette had been forced to choose, and worse yet, she stuck Kagami with Adrien. It would have been one thing for Marinette to make herself happy, even if Kagami wasn't a part of it. But to do this? Make the girls both miserable? It was too much and Kagami was for once thankful for the façade she so commonly wore. It was all that kept her from attracting the attention of Hawkmoth, she was sure.

She couldn't understand why Marinette made the choice she did. She knew, of course, that Adrien was probably her first choice. That made sense. She'd been pining after him for almost a year now. But she thought she'd made progress with Marinette too. She'd seen the girl at least twice a week for the past month. And sure, Adrien helped with that. Honestly, she and Adrien understood each other more than she could express. It would be so much easier if she could just love him instead.

"Kagami? Are you alright?"

Adrien looked at her with worried eyes and Kagami could see how Marinette could fall for them.

"Do you think Marinette is okay?"

He awkwardly scratched his neck. "I don't really know. I wish I knew her better, but for some reason she clams up around me."

"Yes," Kagami thought, "because she's head over heals for you, you blind boy."

Aloud she just asks, "Do you think she favors Luka?"

Adrien coughs on the ice cream- another thing Kagami could kill Andre Glacier over; honestly, mint and orange, did the man have  _ any _ taste buds at all?- and he takes a moment to compose himself.

"I don't think so. After all, they're-"

* * *

"-cousins," Marinette had said one afternoon, laughing wildly. "Alya, you know how Uncle Jagged managed to work his way into having my Nonna adopt him last Christmas?"

"So? How does that have to do with anything, girl?"

"Uh, dude, is Jagged Stone Luka's dad?"

Marinette nodded, serious look on her face. "Yes, and you'd better not tell anyone either. Anarka is still pretty sore about how things ended with them, and the last thing she needs is to hear people bringing it up."

* * *

Nino, of course, had brought it up. Totally on accident, and really, it wasn't exactly his fault if it slipped. But when Adrien and Kagami had shown up on the boat and Anarka had come by to see how Kitty Section was doing, well… the purple guitar soulmark showing at the edge of her right sleeve suddenly meant something to him, and before he could stop himself he found himself saying "Dude, is that really Jagged Stone?" Everyone froze, and it was only through sheer luck that Jagged  _ had  _ pulled up to the boat right then.

Adrien called him later though, and his story had fallen apart quickly.

"How did you know Jagged Stone was going to show up, anyways?"

"Uhh, I just saw him dude, nothing weird about that."

"Nino, I was looking at Anarka too and Jagged wasn't there yet. What's this really about?"

And so Nino had spilled his guts, because he was terrible at keeping secrets, and it was bad enough that he couldn't tell his best friend, his  _ soulmate _ , that he was Carapace. It did help, of course, that Alya knew, and she was his soulmate too, but they were dating, and Ladybug had been very clear that being soulmates with someone did  _ not _ mean he could tell them his identity.

"Only one of my soulmates knows I'm Ladybug, and he was the one who gave me my miraculous. I have to lie to my crush and my best friend every day. That's the real price of the miraculous."

And Nino knew how grave the consequences for revealing it were. He'd seen Chloe hounded by the papparazi before, and he knew that after she revealed herself as Queen Bee things had only gotten worse. The whole class was still on edge from the thirty year old man who  _ forged  _ a soulmark to match her left arm in an attempt to be with her.

Soulmarks might be sacred, but to be with one of Paris's guardians? Nino understood why the secret couldn't get out.

So sure, he told Adrien too much. But it was the only way he could sleep at night. Besides, Marinette and Luka being cousins couldn't possibly matter in the long run.

* * *

Kagami was not amused. If anything, she was more confused than before.

If Marinette hadn't been looking between Luka and Adrien that day… who else had she been looking at?

Kagami had never been so happy when Ladybug swung down to pull her away.

* * *

"Your hair looks beautiful," Kagami had said, stars in her eyes, and Marinette felt her heart seize, subtly rubbing her right arm as she put her hair up.

"She's right," Adrien said, although his look had been more soft. Gentle.

Marinette's heart had still seized.

When they hid, Marinette had given up her hair ties, comfort though they might be, to save the two she loved. Because she was sure, she loved them both.

When she'd left them with their ice cream, her heart had cracked. She cried as soon as she turned the corner, and she knew she had to talk to someone.

She called Alya.

"Alya," she sobbed, "I can't do this anymore. I, I, I can't handle it! I love them so much!"

"Hey now, breathe for me Marinette. What's happened?"

"They have each other and I should be happy.  _ They're  _ happy, that's what I want."

"It's okay to feel things, girl. Is it Adrien and Kagami?"

Marinette nodded, and let out a choked "yes."

"Well at least you still have one soulmate left."

And there, Marinette couldn't hold it in at all anymore, and she was  _ sure _ she'd be akumatized, and it wasn't anyone's fault but her own.

Because she was the one who's lied to her best friend and soulmate. She was the one who had lied with a smile and said that no, Alya, there's nothing on my left leg yet, I'll tell you when it does, didn't I tell you even about Kagami?

No one else knew about the red hibiscus flowers on the outside of her left thigh; no one knew that the thinned out to circle the symbol of the Guardians; no one had even seen the realistic image of a ladybug on the head of a tortoise right above her knee, and she'd keep it that way. Master Fu had warned her what losing the guardianship would mean for him, and Marinette wanted her mentor for as long as she could have him.

But she wanted love too.

Then she heard screams, and a call of "akuma!" and she stuttered out a quick "Sorry, Alya, I have to go."

* * *

"I'm honored that you've chosen me again, Ladybug, but I thought you couldn't chose me again for this miraculous."

"There's no time. I need you….oooour exceptional talent!"

They land on the roof, and Ladybug tells her, "Don't look at me, I have to transform back," and Kagami can swear there's a gentle lilt to her voice. It confirms what she believed, what her tattoos had hinted. Because it's true, her right arm had hardly any tattoos at all; they were all in orange, just a pair of skates and a glass of juice. But when she'd looked closely, she noticed that on the same day the juice appeared, so too did little buttons on the skates, each with five tiny spots.

Kagami holds in a gasp, because  _ this girl _ ,  _ right here _ , the girl she loved and was fated for, she was Ladybug, and yes, everything made perfect sense.

Kagami didn't even register what Marinette did until she heard a soft voice asking, "I hope I didn't interrupt anything with… that boy."

Kagami smiled and shook her head. "No. He's my soulmate but. I don't think it will be like that."

"It's wonderful to see you again, Kagami-San."

"And you, Longg-Sama."

"That boy is famous though, isn't he? Being his soulmate… I'm sure it will work out well, but you're bound to break a lot of hearts."

"There's only one heart I want to protect. Marinette. She's another soulmate. But she doesn't know, I don't think. I wish I wouldn't hurt her. Adrien and I are made for each other, but I'm made for her too."

"Sometimes, choices can be so hard."

"I wish…" Kagami took a deep breath, steeling herself. "I wish I could find the courage to tell her."

"Tell her what," Ladybug asked, stepping around the corner, transformed again.

Kagami leveled a look at her, staring into Ladybug's- Marinette's- eyes. "I wish I could tell her that I could only love a woman, romantically. I wish I could tell her to chase after Adrien herself, if it would make her happy. I wish I could tell her that this," Kagami paused as she pointedly rolled up her right sleeve, showing Marinette her soulmarks, her proof of connection to her, her love for her, "is just as important as this," and she showed the much larger sleeve of tattoos on her left, the swords crossed, the silhouette of Chat Noir (from the movie he voice acted in, she was sure), the cardboard boxes they had hidden in, and more and more and Marinette can't  _ believe  _ that that sleeve didn't mean the love hers did, because if it didn't, did she love Adrien at all?

"We have a mission to do," Kagami said, steeling herself. "Lonng, bring the storm."

* * *

Marinette could still remember when she got each of her soulmarks.

The day she had been gifted her miraculous, and Alya's blue phone appeared on her right ankle.

The day Master Fu had healed Tiki and she had gained the hibiscus on her left thigh.

The day she had taken an umbrella in real life from Adrien, and when she had returned home she found the same umbrella, etched in black, on her left bicep.

How she when had finally let Kagami in she had grown a creeping orange dragon down her right.

She knew Fu and Alya were mentor and best friend. She had thought she had to love Adrien, because she didn't want to be alone and Alya was tragically straight and much more interested in Nino, at any rate.

She knew she felt something for Adrien. But knowing Kagami felt for her too? It threw everything else into question.

So sure, maybe she'd forgotten to take back Kagami's miraculous. She'd just left so quickly. And sure, she'd broken down in Luka's arms, ignorant of his silent vow to end whoever hurt her like this. 

But she forgot to run back to Fu. She had almost no warning when the wasps attacked.

For all her maturity, she was only fifteen. And fifteen is an awfully young age for so much weight on one pair of shoulders.

Luka blocked them from her, but they were fast; too fast. She couldn't get to the water, couldn't transform. And then she heard her.

"Water dragon!"

And there she was, in Kagami's arms, with Ryuko staring down at her with a sad smile.

"You forgot to take Longg back from me, Ladybug. I wanted to be sure you hadn't forgotten, after you ran away so quickly."

"Ladybug? I'm not Ladybug, that's crazy, I-"

"I know it's you. My marks have all but confirmed it." She set her jaw and looked at the bees around them. "For now, I believe we still have a mission. Let us hope that Chat Noir has not fallen victim as well."


End file.
